


The Rage of a Widower

by nighttimecity



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Dark!13, Episode: s11e10 The Battle of Ranskoor Av Kolos, Friendship, Gen, Graham kills Tim Shaw, Minor Violence, Reconciliation, Series 11 Episode 10, Team TARDIS, The Oncoming Storm, This is Bad, Violence, dark doctor, the ending that Tim deserved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:48:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161445
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nighttimecity/pseuds/nighttimecity
Summary: Graham had a chance to face the man who caused the death of his wife, Grace. He had vowed that if he ever saw the man again, he would kill him but can he actually do it? (Set during the finale of Season 11. An Alternate Universe where Graham kills Tzim Shaw rather than letting him live.)





	1. Revenge

**Author's Note:**

> hi thanks i am essentially illiterate  
> this is a bad story but im posting it anyways

The icy, piercing metal of the walls loomed over the pair as their gazes locked; one possessing sly amusement and the other clouded with hatred. They stood at opposite ends of the room, a decent few meters between them, as though they were in a western gun showdown. To a human, the cool of the metal could numb your arm in a heartbeat, leave hanging there as though it were dead but, the hidden cold-heartedness within Graham spread and swarmed to every nerve to his body, numbing him, and freezing his mind colder than the air around them. Even the mere glance at Tzim Shaw's face sent a vile, inhumane shudder through his veins, and his mind torturing him with flashes of Grace.

He knew what he had to do.

"Sorry, Ryan," he spoke, mostly for himself as Ryan was nowhere to be seen at this moment- which was a blessing really. He wouldn't be much a good Granddad if he killed a tooth-covered blue alien in front of his Grandson.

With his hands shaking, and his knuckles turning white from the pressure he used to grip the bizarre alien weapon, he changed his stance ever so slightly to aim his gun at the smirking alien shrouded in darkness. The weapon buzzed, hummed and vibrated softly in his hands like a cat as it charged itself, becoming eagerly ready to fire. He licked  
his lips, moistening them as if he was trying to wash away the fear from his lips as if to convince himself that this was moral.

"My wife died because of you," he stated, his tone wavered gently, quietly but it was only noticeable to him. He knew that he was afraid, how could he not be? He had seen what the monster across him was capable of: he'd seen the bodies, the teeth lining his face like trophies, and he'd seen the Doc struggle against him.

Tzim Shaw's lips curled into a gruesome smile, that appeared to be more a smirk if you paid close attention. "Good." His tone was sinister, each sound that came from his mouth was laced and drowned in poison, as though they were weapons themselves.

"I swore if I ever saw you again, I'd kill you," he said, and his tone wavered more that time, his fear dripping into his speech. He wasn't speaking directly to Tzim Shaw, no, he was speaking to himself. He was trying to monologue, the justify his actions so that he could have the strength and the courage to do them: to have the bravery to avenge  
Grace.

The alien’s sick amusement grew as he watched the emotions flash across the human's eyes: fear, guilt, sadness, anger and love. He had waited 3,000 years for the Doctor to face him again, but she wasn't there, so a few more minutes with the human couldn't harm him in the slightest. 

"And, yet, you falter."

As the words poured from his mouth, the end of the gun twitched. Even from across the room, Tzim Shaw could see the fear growing within the human, the anger that once resided within him was slowing, like a flame being extinguished, and the fear was morphing its way into every curve and corner of the human's body.

"You are no warrior," mocked the alien. He had many experiences with humans in the past, mostly to collect them as trophies, and he knew that every single one of them was susceptible to mocking. He wanted to see them reach their tipping point, to see them squirm and struggle in his grip, trying to argue against the fact that they could do nothing against him.

Graham's mouth hung open. He was thinking. At that moment, he had to decide his own fate, about who he would become: a cold-blooded murderer motivated by love, or a loving husband with a heart full of mercy? 

"No." He should have lowered the gun, he should have looked him in the eye and been the better man. "But I want justice for my wife."

He squinted his eyes behind the gun, lining his shot up perfectly with the crosshair pointed carefully at the alien's armoured chest. Said alien continued to stare at him, amused by the whole situation, and still in denial that Graham would be capable of killing another being. Graham took a deep breath, his hand on the trigger, and as  
he exhaled... he fired.

The gun whirred loudly, springing to life as the shot burst from the gun in a neon blaze and Tzim Shaw screamed, his raw voice echoing and bouncing off the walls that surrounded them, encasing Graham in a tomb where his greatest mistake was repeated over and over. As the alien's body fell and he tumbled the ground, another figure became visible behind him, one that he would be able to recognise from miles away.

Ryan.

Evidently, betrayal was etched into every pore on Ryan's face. They had talked a number of times about this topic, and each time they came to the same conclusion which was to never, ever kill him. While Tzim Shaw had been the cause of Grace's death, the Doctor had taught them that the act of murdering him would do nothing except  
ruin their relationship and shatter the Doctor's trust in them.

As soon as his eyes fell onto Ryan, he dropped the gun. It clattered against the dirty floor beneath his feet, and it produced mild warmth that he could feel against his own skin even under his clothes.

"You killed him." Ryan's voice was filled with an array of emotions, all of them so perfectly blended together it was almost impossible to tell them apart. But anger quickly shone above the others. "You were supposed to be the bigger man!"

"Grace would have wanted me to give him a piece of his own medicine!" spoke Graham. His voice was louder than the one he had used with Tzim Shaw, and the fear that he had been restraining with a loose thread had come loose, and all of his worries and his doubts poured through. He continued to try and reason with himself, even though  
it was clear what he had done. "An' he can't kill anyone else now!"

"Nan would have never wanted you to kill anyone!" yelled Ryan, his tone was escalating fast. Each syllable echoed in the empty room, magnifying its impact on his Granddad, not that he would ever admit they were related now. "Don't try and make up excuses!"

Ryan stormed off, his anger coursing through his veins. From where he was standing, paralyzed with the realisation of what he had done, he could hear his Grandson scream in frustration, kicking the wall and various other objects as he left. Suddenly, the fear of losing the last person he had (and his last connection to Grace) over rid the paralysation and he sprinted up the stairs, and then down the hallway after Ryan.

* * *

By the time Ryan came storming into the TARDIS, the Doctor and Yaz had already been there for a while, clearly in the middle of a close conversation. His breath was heaving as he skidded to a halt, slamming the door to the TARDIS behind him. Exhausted, he rested his body against one of the crystals, slumping against it and sliding down  
to the floor in a seated position.

Before one of the two women could say anything to him, the door to the TARDIS creaked open slowly as Graham, slightly less out of breath than Ryan, stepped inside, closing the door behind him carefully, rather than slamming it forcefully as Ryan did. Noticing the tense atmosphere that spread across the TARDIS once the two of them entered, the Doctor stepped up.

"So, then, how'd it go with our good friend, Tim Shaw? I would've come to check and all that, but I was a little busy with saving everyone here and on Earth," said the Doctor. Her tone was bright, and chipper as she tried to elevate the mood of the conversation. "it's not the first time I've done that though, should really make a list, I'm starting to lose count."

A brief silence filled the room as Graham couldn’t bare to vocalise the truth, and Ryan can't believe what he saw. The Doctor's smile fell for a second, but no one was able to see.

"It was, uh, okay. We didn't 'ave any problems or anythin'" said Graham, breaking the silence that spread across the console room. His stuttering made it obvious that he was lying, but part of him hoped that the Doctor would skip over it and blame it on a sudden chill.

The Doctor pretended to believe him for a moment, her hands travelling across the console desktop, as she began to enter the coordinates for Sheffield, 2018 as she figured they could all do with a break. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Graham was uneasy which solidified her hunch that he was lying to her.

Ryan suddenly spoke up, cutting through the tense atmosphere. "Graham killed him."

Each person in the console room had a different expression painted on their face. Yaz was shocked, still living in disbelief that Graham had killed Tim Shaw, despite what he had done during his own life. Her mouth hung open slightly, but she closed it quickly and swallowed her saliva as her eyebrows tilted and raised. Ryan looked down at the floor of the console room, his mouth dry as he refused to make eye contact with anyone in the room, refusing to acknowledge what had happened after all the progress that they had made together. Graham himself was panicked, if not terrified. He had seen the Doctor do marvellous things, but none of the fam had ever seen her lose her temper, even when she was fighting Tim Shaw herself- instead, he had seen her jump a crane to save a man she had only spoken to once. The Doctor stood by the console, her hands stilled above the buttons on the desktop, her body was facing the door of the TARDIS, where Graham was standing. Her face was pointed downwards, and she stared at the buttons, her shoulders and body were hunched over, frozen in position but none of them could see her expression past her blonde hair.

"You went directly against my orders?" spoke the Doctor. Her tone was harsher than any of them had ever heard before, and her way of speaking changed from bubbly child to a superior officer – which was something Yaz knew well, but none of her superior officers could compare to the Doctor. The three of them had trouble believing that it was the Doctor speaking to Graham and not some long-lost evil twin that had manifested out of nowhere.

"I-No! No, it was nothin' like that-" Graham started. He was desperately trying to create an excuse out of thin air. If he said he killed him for Grace, Ryan would vehemently deny it, and point out that she wouldn't have wanted it. He had realised he was wrong, and at that moment, he had made the wrong choice.

"But you killed him?" cut in the Doctor. When she was in her normal mood, she could easily become the centre of attention or direct the attention to her. But now, she was harsh, and her tone was sharp as though she was piercing him with a blade. "Yes or no?"

"Doc-"

Again, Ryan spoke up from the side. He was distant from everyone else, still leaning in a sitting position against one of the large, amber crystals. "I saw him do it with me own two eyes"

Graham's gaze flicked to Ryan as he spoke, his eyes blown wide in panic and fear, and his lungs struggled to take in the air. His gaze quickly flicked back to the Doctor who still had yet to look up from the console. "Yeah- but he deserved it after what he did to grace!" he said, he reasoned. "An' now that he's gone he can't hurt anyone else!"

"Graham."

She paused. With that pause, the whole TARDIS fell into an eerie silence, even the TARDIS herself has fallen silent as she sensed the growing anger within her Thief. The Doctor's companions stilled their breath, afraid that even the sound of that would anger the Doctor even further.

"You have crossed a line that I specifically told you not to cross!" 

The Doctor yelled down at the console desktop, but her anger was purely directed at Graham and he could feel her anger in his own veins like a disease. As she finished her sentence, she curled both of her hands into fists and slammed them both down against the console, the buttons clattered against each other in their holders. The TARDIS beeped angrily at her Thief, but she ignored the TARDIS, and the companions were filled with shock. Every day they had known the Doctor, she had protected her Ghost Monument, and not let any of them touch her. Fearing the Doctor at this moment, Yaz moved away from the console, and away from the Doctor and moved to join Ryan but she stood next to the crystal, in case she needed to hide behind it. Even throughout this yelling, she never once looked up to face them.

"You can NEVER return to the person you were before you came here. The fact that YOU and YOU alone chose to kill him in that moment - in his own moment of weakness! - will be engraved into your mind for as long as you live, and you will never EVER escape it. In that moment, you decided that it was right for you to be the Judge, the Jury and the Executor!"

"...what about you? In the Kerblam! factory. You blew up, poor ol' Charlie," countered Graham. He knew, deep down, that he could never win this argument; especially not with the Doctor. She was far too smart for him to even comprehend, and she always knew the answer to every situation that they could possibly be in.

Finally, she looked up from the console. Her body was no longer hunched across the various, complicated buttons but was not standing tall, and rigid. She turned her face to look at him, the soft, amber lights of the TARDIS used to make her appear warmer and softer but now those same amber lights were like fire surrounding her, as though her own fury was personified.

"In that moment, I gave Charlie a choice, I gave him a chance. But he chose to die." The Doctor stated this like stone, an unchangeable fact in history. Her face showed no joy, no positivity or optimism was left, only anger.

Graham took a step back, subconsciously. "Charlie was just a kid! He was afraid, an' he didn't know what he was doin'!" he stuttered out in response. He could feel his own sweat building up his body and dripping coldly down his spine. He didn't think the small, blonde woman could be so threatening. "Besides, you told that twirly bot to blow everythin' up without a second thought!"

The Doctor took a step forward around the console, a step towards Graham which forced him down from the higher platform of the console room and down onto the lower section. It gave her another advantage. She glared at him, with fire igniting behind her eyes, thousands of years’ worth of rage was pouring from her. Her presence grew larger, suffocating the room and the room dimmed under her rage. Yaz and Ryan shared a worried glance.

"I crossed that line a long time ago- I tried to stop you from heading down that same path so that you wouldn't end up how I have! I never wanted any of you to even consider thinking that what you did was remotely okay, but you ignored my orders, and now you have strayed from your path and have begun your lonely journey to where I am standing." She paused for a moment, thinking her next words carefully: she didn't want to reveal so much with Yaz and Ryan still present. "Was it worth it?"

"No. I wish I hadn't done it." Graham's tone had switched from defensive and angry to guilty and regretful. He could feel Grace's eyes on him, he could feel her disapproving stare. He wanted it to go away.

"You can keep wishing for the rest of your life. You took it into your own hands and look what it has done to you, to the rest of us."

"Please, Doc-" Graham began to beg. Travelling to distant planets with the Doctor allowed him to forget that Grace was gone and that she wouldn't be there when he returned home for the most part. It helped him to connect with Ryan, and the adventures as a whole helped to feel as though he was young again when he didn't have as many problems.

"Don't call me that," snapped the Doctor. Her tone was harsh and gritty, almost sounding as though she was growling at him with frustration. "Get out of my TARDIS. You cannot be trusted here."

The Doctor raised her arm, pointing at the doors. The large and now intimidating doors to the ship snapped open sharply, slamming against the inside of the ship, to reveal Sheffield 2018 outside Yaz's block of flats. It was the last time he would ever be in the TARDIS. Graham had shame written across his face, now marked into his face never to be removed. Reluctantly, part of him still hoping she would change her mind, he turned around and walked out of the TARDIS for the last time. The doors slammed shut behind him, locking him out.

Graham felt the breeze travel from the doors travel past him, causing the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up. The weather was different from when they had left. Earlier, it was sunny, bright and colourful much like the fam was, but now dark, menacing clouds loomed over him and small droplets of rain began to fall. For him, it was fitting.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor clenched her fists again. Even after Graham had left, her body was fuelled with so much rage that she couldn't contain it, and it was at moments like these that she wished she still had a body that could mask her rage. Without even thinking, her boot-covered foot swung upwards, slamming into the console and she let out a muffled, quiet murmur of pain as she bit her lip. She inhaled shakily, and exhaled rather loudly, with her eyes squeezed shut before sinking down to her knees, her body hunched over the floor beneath the console desktop.


	2. Reconciliation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor reflects on her words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> half of this has been sat in notepad for months but I've been feeling sad so why not use that to make the characters sad, you know?

The Doctor perched on her toes as she hunched forward underneath the desktop of the console with her heels pointed upwards. Her head was hung down sloppily and her hair acted like an iron shield that she used to protect herself from the judging gazes of Yaz and Ryan. She gripped the console, her knuckles white and shaking as her nails scratched into the console with surface leaving small white lines almost as though etching a panicked art piece. Her breathing was heavy, and ragged as her emotions flared through her veins and through both of her hearts before she finally repositioned her cheerful exterior upon her face again, replacing it as it continued to slip and shudder from her features.

She could feel Yaz and Ryan's gazes burning into her like a brand- full of emotions that the Doctor would be able to recognise and name without them having to show an expression at her: the guilt, the sadness and the fear. Releasing her grip on the console, her nails skidded down and fell down onto the floor where they pressed against the cool metal to support the Timelord as she rolled back onto the balls of her feet. Quickly, in a sudden movement, she sprung into a standing position with the guilt evident on her face as she avoided looking up at her companions.

Running a hand through her blonde hair, she lifted the fringe to reveal her forehead and hairline with a struggling crease in her eyebrows. "I'm sorry the two of you had to see that- and to you especially, Ryan, it was my own fault that Graham became like that," spoke the Doctor. Her mood had changed drastically from a thundering storm to a peaceful drizzle.

"Nah..." began Ryan. But, he paused briefly to consider his words carefully. He still cared for his Granddad, and the two of them has made considerable progress towards becoming a close family but it was hard to love a person after watching them kill someone in front of you. "I'm glad you gave him a lecture."

"A scary one at that," chimed Yaz. She was attempting to lighten the dark atmosphere that had moved into the console room. 

"Oh, yeah, you were proper scary there!" added Ryan. Apparently, Yaz's tactic had worked so far, at least on Ryan. But it was the Doctor's mood that she was more focused on raising before it could worsen.

Unfortunately for Yaz, her tactic had not worked on the Doctor, who remained glued to the console with her head facing downwards to stare intensely at the buttons placed there with that same conflicted look. Now, the atmosphere also had a layer of awkwardness to it as the remarks of Ryan and Yaz went cold. 

The Doctor closed her eyes for a brief moment. "Well, you live as long as I have and you learn a thing or two about how to be scary, I suppose," replied the Doctor. Her mood was still very obviously low yet she was making an attempt to improve it, to secure her mask back into place before they saw too much of her true identity.

"Surely you can't be that old, Doctor," argued Yaz.

Ryan nodded his head repeatedly. "Yeah, you can't be older than thirty!" piped in Ryan.

The Doctor, on the other hand, merely released an empty chuckle. It didn't hold the same venom that her previous tone had, it was closer to _her_ and the person that she was trying to be. "I was in the Academy when I was thirty- wouldn't go back though, apparently I 'asked too many questions' which was quite rude frankly," she added, using air quotes. Her mood was improving cheerfully but she was still open, and her friends were going to immorally exploit it. "I mean your teacher is there to answer your questions. Don't know why they quit, to be honest."

"Wait, then how old are you?" asked Yaz. Occasionally, her human friends would forget that she was alien since she looked identical to them and acted much like a human child would.

She shrugged, loosely. "Dunno, last time I checked I was... at least two thousand years old- I think. Time Travel makes it really hard to count these things."

“Nah you’re pulling our legs, right?” stuttered out Ryan. “You’re just about 36 and you told off Graham who’s nearly double your age-”

“I’m just as old as the _stupid_ God you created in your religions!” she screamed. Her mood had crashed suddenly and sharply, like a piece of rope fraying at the ends until it’s eventual breaking point. She didn’t want to snap at them like this- she hated it and she hated herself the second the words had left her mouth.

Instantly, Yaz and Ryan recoiled from her trembling form- they wanted to hold her as the “Doctor” but they knew the woman in front of them now was the real monster behind the masks she had constructed: the truth behind the lie. The mask she loved was still held in front of her face, but her true self flooded from behind, crushing the cheap facade.

“Over 2,000 years old and I’m still a fool,” cried the Doctor, quietly to herself. She was vulnerable now- all of her emotions that she had worked hard to maintain and control carefully in front of them twisting her, blending together as though they were all assaulting her with bats from all directions.

“And I kicked out Graham like a bloody hypocrite,” she continued, whispering to herself. At this point, they were sure she wasn’t talking to them, but to herself. She was reviewing the events of the day, processing them- and now they could assume she did this after every adventure and they dreaded to see what her other breakdowns looked like. 

Then her body jolted upwards suddenly like a spring. Turning sharply on her heels, she sprinted from the console where she had been hiding and threw herself in the direction of the doors, desperately- her emotions clear as day on her face. It was still raining outside, the cool water freezing against her boiling skin, seeping into her skin- replacing her boiling rage with a cold melancholy. 

She was outside of Yaz’s flats like they always were, her ship drawn to the location for a reason she couldn’t quite understand yet but it meant that there was likely only one direction Graham would have left in. Sprinting now, she forced her body faster and faster until her lungs burned in her chest and her hearts crashed against her ribs as though they would going to burst free from her chest.

In the distance, she saw Graham. He turned at the sound of feet thumping and crashing against the tarmac- and his eyes widened in a horrific mix of fear, relief, surprise and guilt at the sight of the Doctor sprinting towards him, far tangled in the wind and her eyes red. He froze on the spot. Within mere seconds, he felt her body collide with him in a tight hug as she gripped tightly at the back of his coat.

“I’m sorry- I’m _so_ sorry. I was stupid, and a hypocrite to you-” she sobbed into his chest, her tears now staining the material of his shirt. Her hands were trembling as she gripped his jacket, and her throat locked up when she tried to speak to him, but he understood the message nonetheless. 

“I think a lot of the stuff you said in there was right, Doc, I shouldn’t have done it,” he replied, as his own arms moved upwards to wrap around her smaller, shaking torso. “Didn’t know you had that type of anger in ya.”

“Will you come back to the TARDIS- to us?” she asked. She moved her face from his chest, rubbing her cheek against him accidentally, revealing the stain from her tears. The look on her face was an unconscious guilt trip.

“I’d love to, but only if the other two are okay with it. If they ain’t then I won’t come along again, wouldn’t be fair on them,” he answered, like such a wise old Grandad.

She beamed up at him, tears still fresh on her cheeks and her eyes still a furious red. “That’s brilliant, Graham O’Brien!” she grinned. “Though- if you do attempt anything like this again-”

“I get it! I get it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> blasphemous 13 activity


End file.
